The Russia-Ukraine invasion, which is now into the third week, has left many markets struggling. In the cryptocurrency sector, the general bearish sentiment over the last 48 hours has pulled many tokens back, erasing hard-fought gains from early last week. Most altcoins have posted red candles on the day, adding to the already ailing 7-day changes.
ALGO, the governance and utility token on Algorand, is among those that have seen significant plunges. The token’s price against the dollar has dipped 14% from its mark last week. Worth noting, the Algorand ecosystem recently shared several updates. More details around Algorand and its token’s price action below:
Algorand aims at enhanced cross-chain interoperability with latest technical release
The Algorand network has introduced a number of updates in its latest technical release as it aims to enable developers to create complex decentralized applications easily. The upgrade comes after the blockchain network recently launched a $20 million incentives program to boost research on EVM compatibility and developer tool suites for the Algorand network.
Some of the core updates of the new release include:
Smart contract-to-contract calls
By introducing contract-to-contract calls, dApp developers can shift away from the current model that necessitates manually logging data in each contract’s global and local states, which another smart contract can then access.
Automatic smart contract calling will mean improved usability and functionality of sophisticated dApps since contracts will be able to directly call other contracts when building applications that require multiple contracts.
In addition to using other developers’ smart contracts directly, eliminating the need to catalog information will enable Algorand users to leverage automated market makers (AMMs) for the best deals. They will also enjoy safety checking for applications.
Algorand State Proofs
Algorand’s technical upgrade will also introduce Falcon Keys. With successful implementation in the coming days, the keys will enable the generation of a new blockchain infrastructure, State Proofs.
The Algorand State Proofs (ASPs) will allow users to ‘trustlessly’ access dApps from low power platforms, including smartphones, smartwatches, and other blockchains smart contracts, without compromising on security. Moreover, the blockchain infrastructure will be implementable in all proof of stake chains and should play a major role in achieving true decentralization.
Algorand votes for an updated governance system with the introduction of an x-Gov tier
On the last day of February, Algorand governors completed a period two vote that opened on January 31. Of the 38k participating governors, nearly 95% voted for a proposal to have a new governance mechanism introduced to the community. Algorand will move away from having the Algorand Foundation in charge of proposing and facilitating votes and instead introduce a new tier of Expert Governors (xGovs).
This layer of community leaders will enjoy proposing power equivalent to their experience in governance, and the magnitude of their committed stake – serving as an xGov will be facilitated by participation in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
After such overwhelming approval of the proposal, a discussion shall now happen within the community to determine the xGov rules, with an intention to reward extended periods of committing to governance. In the coming months, the Foundation will provide details on the functional mechanisms of the new governance system.
Following the vote, the Algorand Foundation said 2.8 billion Algo was committed, and therefore at a rate of 2.5%, governance rewards for period 1 stood at 70.5 million Algo. Concluding, it informed governors they would receive their rewards at the end of their governance period, before which their wallet balances should not plunge below their committed figures.
Notably, arguments against the xGov system opined that the use of experience-weighting and the possibility of an enforcing entity for the xGov’s operational rules would go against decentralization.
Algorand (ALGO) market performance
Algorand’s token ALGO has lost support above $0.74 early on Tuesday and was trading at $0.7279 at the time of writing. CoinMarketCap data showed the token had shed 1.45% in the last 24 hours and was headed for a new weekly low below the current $0.7226 figure.
ALGO/USD YTD trading chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
The current slump comes just a week after ALGO rallied to $0.89 (last Tuesday) for the first time since February 20. The ALGO/USD year-to-date (YTD) trading chart shows a consistent decline for the token whose price has more than halved since the start of the year. YTD figures indicate a 56.93% dip, while on a broader timeframe, the ALGO token is changing hands 77.75% below its all-time high.
To learn more about this token visit our Investing in Algorand guide.
The post Algorand (ALGO) Down 15% In the Last 7 Days Despite the Network Recently Announcing Updates appeared first on Securities.io.
